Friendlier Skies Part One - To Unsettle
by Frick6101719
Summary: Freedom is what they fight for, but when a cold-blooded killer halts any revolutionary progress in their city, Les Amis are forced to make some unlikely (and familiar) acquaintances if they want to stand a chance in a fight so much bigger than themselves. WARNING: May contain traces of Robin Hood, Captain America, Hunger Games, and other miscellaneous plots/characters
1. Prologue

He was intimidating and dangerous and powerful and frightening and everyone knew it. But none knew the depths of the man's twisted ways until one month and seventeen days after he was gone.

The servants of the house knew exactly how it went. Their master would go off for his job, doing whatever it was he did for whatever reasons he had for doing them, taking up anywhere from a few days to nearly two weeks. Then, as usual, he would return to the house, demanding a large stack of papers, two pens and a pitcher of water be delivered to his room. The entire mansion staff knew not to disturb him when this happened. The staff turned this into a method of eliminating new and unwanted coworkers, but that is a story for another time.

For up to a few days the man would not leave his room. A new dishboy one day asked the cook when their master would be back, and the old cook and answered wryly "about two days after he gets home" to the snickers of the more experienced kitchen workers. But they only laughed quietly.

Then the man would exit his room and all would be well again. Though the servants were scared of their master, he was generally a good patron and treated them fairly so long as they did their jobs well. They never asked about what happened behind that closed door after his journeys, and as such they never received any answers.

Until one day, one month and seventeen days after the man's demise.

A boy was clearing out the master's bedroom when he stumbled upon a large trunk behind a wall panel. Upon removing the large box, he opened it, revealing row upon row of organised folders of yellowed pages, covered in ink.

He thought back of the pastime into which his master had delved with such fervor, and his fingers and eyes burned with curiosity. He started at the beginning, reading many, many things which _he_ found fascinating, but which hold no relevance in this story.

It is a folder near the end with which we concern ourselves. Particularly fat, filled with photos and letters and many. many pages of notes in his master's writing.

The label scrawled across the front of the folder made the boy's blood cool. He touched the pages' dog-eared corners, hands trembling. His abominable desire got the best of him, and he opened it.

It was this way that the large country of Devia pulled the actions of one of its leaders out of the dark.

But to write here all of what the boy read would ruin the fun of the story. For now, I give you a few lines, and the rest will be told to you by a handful of interesting characters:

_Looking back on it all now, I can see my mistakes quite easily. Rather, my _mistake._ I found the note, I mentioned him as an arrogant, hot-aired prevaricator, her as an empty-headed insubordinate, him as a brawny, disillusioned fool, her as a fickle conspirator, him as a sarcastic, pathetic drunk, she as a spineless, sniveling whore. The whole lot of them as far too young, far too mistaking, and although they are all these things, they may succeed nonetheless._

_Beware the young lion; when he grows he will not forget you._


	2. Chapter 1

**Hi everyone. This is my first time of absolutely ever posting one of my many stories online. You are all the first people who don't know me to be allowed access to the stories as dear to me as children. So please be nice, but if you do read through this one, please leave a little piece of feedback for me. I'm only wanting to get better, so all kindly-worded suggestions are welcome! And I can't say enough thank yous, but consider this about a million to start. Hope you like it!**

Part one - To Unsettle

Chapter one:

Firelight and stars made the best combination, of this and a few other things Rylenn was decidedly sure.

She sat on a wooden table beside her best friend, listening to John Little, hilariously nicknamed Little John, tell a story of how he and Robin had been chased by an angry cow when they had tried to rescue its calf from the "clutches of a wicked fence!" as John described.

Robin laughed with tears in his eyes as his friend stomped around the clearing, big body and bigger voice telling the story of "Devil cow"

"She crept up right behind old Robin here and, I'm not kidding you!" He assured a skeptical Will Scarlet. "He crossed his eyes and breathed heavily from his nostrils. "She looked about as angry as my old lady when I used '_oh, _poor table manners!'" He shot his voice up an octave, mimicking his infamous mother. "Poor lad nearly fainted on the spot. Anyhow, that little baby thing trots his way off like we aren't about to catch his beating, and we hightail it outta there!" He slaps one of the men on the back so hard his teeth rattled. "But we were not to be so lucky! No, the old thing _chases_ us bloody halfway across the pasture, and poor Robin here is in such lousy shape he nearly didn't make it!"

Rylenn laughed, clutching Marian's arm for support. She shared John's passionate distaste for running, but unlike the man, she knew how to fly when necessary. But imagining the scene John painted, he dragging the quick-footed Robin behind him, the smaller man pleading with John to carry him, the whole thing had Rylenn in stitches.

"'No Robin!' I tell him. 'I will absolutely _not_ be carrying you anywhere you know it was you and your ideas to cut through this farm in the first place that got us here!' Of course it was though eh? Robin's always looking to cut corners." He winked at his friend.

Even the notoriously emotionless wall that was Will Scarlet couldn't repress a smile as John finished the story with his usual flourish.

"But alas, we made it out alive. Despite Robin's best efforts, so it seemed." He plunked down on the bench beside the man in question and took a long draw from his glass. Slamming it down on the table he announced "but I'll have you all know lads; there's only one thought I had while running out of that awful place, and you better listen up." He leaned forward, pausing for a suspenseful moment. "I'd hate to be the bull that married _her!_" He leaned back in his seat and guffawed, Rylenn and Marian exchanging eye rolls before laughing along with the men.

Robin, still teary eyed, looked across the fire at Marian. _Sorry!_ He seemed to say. The smirk on his face virtually cancelled out his apologetic eyes, but Rylenn could see forgiveness returned across the clearing.

Lily, Marian's little four-year-old, came to sit on her mama's lap. She giggled excitedly as Marian planted a kiss on her nose. "Did you like Mr John's story baby?"

Lily nodded vigorously. "But Mr John doesn't run Mommy!" She shook her head, laughing. "That part was silly!"

Rylenn couldn't keep a smile off her face as she watched the exchange between the only other two females in the premises. Marian was the greatest mother Rylenn had ever seen besides her own, despite being only twenty. She looked across the fire and noticed Robin watching her. She began to fight a creeping blush when she realised Robin was only watching Marian and her little girl.

Rylenn didn't sigh. She just tilted her head back, closed her eyes and tuned out the noises around her. Everything, from men laughing and shouting, fire crackling, and even the cooing of mother and daughter beside her, faded. Silence flowed around her in waves, and the peacefulness that came with it as refreshing and settling as sleep. Her bruised life had moments like this, moments where she couldn't imagine more happiness existing in one person.

She should have known. She was smart enough to know that her whole life was about to be completely unsettled.

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"Aunty Ry! Aunty Ry wake up!"

Rylenn felt small hands shaking her shoulder forcefully. She heard small sniffs from the little girl, but couldn't see her for lack of sunlight. "what's wrong Lily?" she yawned.

"I-I don't know. Mommy just said you… she need you to go see her." As Rylenn's eyes adjusted slowly, she could see Lily's lip quivering slightly. "I'm scared aunty Ry."

Rylenn took the four-year-old in her arms and smoothed down the back of her hair. "Shh, don't worry baby. I'm sure everything's fine."

She dressed as quickly as possible, wondering how Marian's leaving the tent hadn't woken her. The pallet on the ground on the other side of Lily's was empty, and looked as if it had been for some time.

She took Lily's hand and left the tent. She felt her stomach churning beneath the slightly crooked corset around her waist, and Rylenn remembered she had eaten little for dinner that night. She wracked her brain for possible locations of hidden food as it grumbled. _John would know. There's no way he only eats at mealtimes, he would starve or—_

Her thoughts were interrupted by increased pressure on her hand. Lily's nervousness drew her attention to the four figures sitting around a table in the clearing. The fire nearby was small, and not extremely bright, but it cast enough light that Rylenn began to worry at the somber faces of her friends.

Marian was the first to look up upon Rylenn's arrival. Tears shone in her brown eyes, and Robin's protective arm around her shoulder seemed to offer only a little comfort. Lily ran to her mother and jumped into her lap, burying her face into her chest.

She made eye contact with Will as she sat down at the table. He looked even more somber than usual, and Rylenn's stomach continued to tighten. "What's going on?" Her question was to no one in particular, but Robin seemed to be the only one with a voice at that moment.

"Will Stutley is dead." Rylenn saw tears in their leader's eyes also. He didn't look at her, only stroked Lily's hair gently.

Rylenn felt as if she had been punched in the gut. The air left her lungs at the same rate at which the clearing began spinning. She clutched the edge of the table to steady herself, and felt John's meaty hand on her back, keeping her in her seat.

No one spoke for a long minute. Will Stutley had been the oldest member of their moderate-sized band, and though he had been like a father to them all, he was also a close friend. Robin was an orphan, and she knew he had been especially close with the bright-eyed older man.

Will Scarlet broke the silence finally. "He was in Verax, as you know. Cal was with him, and he saw it all unfold. Will was only helping a group of small children and their mother carry some food from their wagon to the house, and when he was done a man came out of nowhere and stabbed him in the back." Will frowned. "Of all the under-handed things to do…" He let the thought hang.

Rylenn fought the mist rising in her eyes, thinking of the young man in a tent nearby. "How's Cal?" He was the only man here younger than her, though by a matter of months, and he still carried a sort of youthful charm and innocence that was fragile and precious.

"I doubt he's sleeping." Will answered simply.

Robin looked at her for the first time. "He seemed remarkably well, all things considered. Of course, he did all he could to save Will, but he knew well the chances, and said he wasn't surprised when he lost him." He offered the slightest of reassuring smiles. "But I believe Cal will recover. It's not him we're most worried about now."

"At his request." John added.

Rylenn looked at them all in turn, confused. "_What_ in the name of all that is good is more important than helping a grieving seventeen-year-old who just—

"Ry," Marian touched her hand gently. "This wasn't the first attack."

Rylenn quieted. She still intended to stop by to see Cal that evening, but she listened to what they had to say.

"No," Robin agreed. "It wasn't. According to the family Will was helping, there have been a few attacks on random citizens in the last month or so. They happen somewhere around once a week, and thankfully don't all end in murder. But the people in Verax need us." He took a deep breath. "They need us to step up. No one else will help them."

She felt John's hand leave her back as he leaned forward. "But it's more dangerous than it's ever been."

Silence. Will looked vaguely angry.

"I don't want anyone else dying." Robin stated quietly. "But that includes us. If anyone doesn't want to get involved, I understand. But if more people are going to die then—

He stopped, hearing Lily whimper beside him. She turned her big brown eyes on him, filled with tears and lip trembling. "Please don't let more people die." She sniffed, and Robin wiped her little tears away with his thumbs.

"That's what we're trying to do, Lil. I'll keep everyone as safe as I can." She nodded, squirming from her mother's lap to his. Robin looked back up at the others. "What I'm saying is that we're going to vote whether or not anyone tries to do anything about this. Majority says yes, then only those who voted yes go. Majority says no," He looked at them all, one at a time. "No one goes. Does that seem fair? No one goes who doesn't want to, but we don't waste lives. Without the strength in numbers we'll very likely be doing just that."

Rylenn agreed, and a quick scan of the nodding heads at the table told her it was very likely that life was about to get a whole lot more dangerous.

She thought back on the two and a bit years she had been a part of the group. She had been only fifteen, but had guts and heart and nerve and all sorts of other attributes that had made her a valuable member. She had engaged in some very dangerous activities in the name of helping the less fortunate, but none with such a blatant threat as this.

But yet, she knew without a doubt that it was the right thing to do. And she would do it.

"I guess then that's settled." Robin nodded grimly. "Thank you. We'll talk to everyone at breakfast and let them think over their decision."

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The vote the next morning passed exactly as Rylenn expected it would. Robin was charming and charismatic and a hundred other things, and although he attracted people in swarms, only a choice few could survive when things got tough. All of the men who were with him now were cut from the same tough cloth as he.

She looked around the clearing at her roughly two dozen companions. Their usually merry faces were marred with grief, but theirs was a sadness fueled by determination to spare others from this fate.

Rylenn felt Marian's hand on her arm. "I'm not sure how I feel about the look on your face."

Rylenn offered a reassuring smile to her friend. "I'm not sure what you mean."

Marian's brown eyes saw through Rylenn's bad jokes, as usual. "Not that I doubted the results of the vote, but why do I doubt that you would have obliged if it had gone the other way?"

Rylenn was silent. She knew Marian was right. Rylenn didn't label herself a rebel, and she considered herself good at following instructions… more or less. Her version of the instructions. She frowned. Did she try and bend the rules that much? "This is a rhetorical question, isn't it?"

"Yes." Marian said quietly. "I don't worry as much as you maybe think I do. But I do want you to remember that anyone can get in over their head."

Rylenn nodded. "I know. I _did_ learn a thing or two getting kicked out of my aunt and uncle's place." Rylenn still considered that occurrence to be an example of someone taking advantage of a rich orphan. Technically, when she turned eighteen she could go back and get her share of her parents fortune. She hadn't decided if she would or not. But although she tried her best to think the best of everyone, it was hard to like the so-called "family" who sent you to the streets at fifteen.

Marian wrapped her arm around Rylenn's shoulder. "We all learned a little on the streets, love." She looked over at her daughter. "And I love Lily more than anything, but I wouldn't wish the mistakes that brought her here on anyone. Especially not you."

Rylenn looked over at the little girl curled up on Robin's lap by the fire. He stroked her hair absently as he made plans with a group of men. Rylenn nodded slowly, reluctantly accepting that she had no argument to present. "I don't think there's much to worry about." She said honestly. "After all, the vote _did_ resolve the way we wanted it to, and there's no reason for me to be creative." A mild argument seemed to break out between Will Scarlet and Cal. Her words landed hollow.

Marian dropped released Rylenn from her half embrace. "I hope you're right."


End file.
